Sara's Shrine
by MadQuinn13
Summary: A year has past since Sara died and Laurel is taking it upon herself to start the healing process since her parents have made it clear that they can't. So with the help of Tommy she starts emptying Sara's room which has been used as a shrine since her death.


Laurel called Tommy as soon as both her parents were off to work. She was on midterm break so now was the perfect time to pack up Sara's room. It had been two years, the wreckage was found and while they said a life boat was gone if they hadn't been rescued by now there was no chance anyone survived, well one crew man did, he was floating on a piece of wreckage but he said he saw Sara get swept under the boat by a current and never saw her surface, it was possible she was caught in something and drowned and there were many dangerous animals there so it was rare that her body would ever be found.

"Are you sure you wanna do this?" Tommy asked once he was in the Lance household.

"I still wake up in the middle of the night sometimes to find one of them lying on her bed crying because she's not coming home. Mom refuses to change anything, even the sheets because those are Sara's favorite and when she comes home she'll want those sheets on her bed. They need to heal. She's dead. Oliver is dead. They're all dead and never coming home."

"I meant are you sure you're okay with this?" Tommy was at the Lance home last Christmas, (Laurel begged him to come so at least then when her mom set the fourth place at the table this time there would be someone to sit) he felt like he was ready to kill himself when out of habit Quentin asked what kind of cake Dinah made only to stop himself, nothing worse than having a child who was born on Christmas be the first in the family to die. After that the whole family forwent Christmas, letting it come and pass without a mention.

"She's dead Tommy. It's time we got rid of the shrine to her in our house so we can finally move on." Laurel went to the dresser first and pulled out some clothes setting them in the boxes on the bed.

"Are you going to give them away?"

"No, I got a storage locker waiting, I figured I'll wait and let mom and dad decided if we donate it or sell it or if we just keep her stuff in storage." Laurel didn't even pause while she emptied one drawer but stopped as soon as she opened the second. "I didn't know she still had this…" She picked up the shirt, bringing it to her nose, she knew Sara had a bad habit of taking a shirt off and putting it right back in the drawer, this shirt had it happen the most since she was afraid that if it was washed it would end up faded and ruined.

"I forgot about the huge Nirvana phase she went through." Tommy remembered coming to the Lance house and hearing Quentin yelling at Sara to turn it down, or eat something and her response would be what was the point if Kurt Cobain was dead.

"Dad was ready to have her committed so they'd shove a feeding tube down her throat when she refused to eat." Laurel smiled at the memory of her mom speaking gently through the bed room door to Sara while her dad was looking for his drill so he could take the whole door off. "I know I should be pissed at her Tommy but I don't care anymore. I want my baby sister back. I just want her back even if all she ever does for the rest of my life is bug me and annoy me and I can't stand this." She slumped down on the floor tears threatening to fall. "All my parents do is cry and fight because maybe Mom could've stopped her and she'd be alive or maybe if Dad wasn't always at work he would've noticed when she left and might have been able to stop her, or arrest her, after all he could plant drugs on her and get her arrested where at least in jail we'd know if she was alive or dead. They're splitting up all because Sara is gone and nothing can bring her back and she's gone. They can't even find her body and the funeral people keep calling asking if we've thought about a service and a grave plot and we have nothing, it'll just be an empty box with nothing else since Sara is gone. Her body could be in a sharks belly right now, or was and now is just shit floating in the water." Tommy sank down to the floor next to her and wrapped his arms around her.

"You don't have to put everything in storage." He knew he wished he still had some of his mom's things.

"I'm going to go pick up some more boxes and bubble wrap for her computer. Do mind finishing up her dresser while I'm gone?" Laurel couldn't handle going through more of the clothes and Tommy just nodded.

"Of course."

…

Laurel returned to find Tommy and the guy from next door loading the empty dresser in the rented U-Hal.

"You did it." She wasn't sure how she felt, knowing that the room that held her baby sister was getting rid of all the signs of it.

"I figured it would be easier on you if I did all of it. We don't have room for her bed yet so I was thinking we'd make a few trips."

"Don't. Don't take her bed. Not yet." If her bed was gone and the room was just empty it would be too much too soon.

"Okay. No one is going to touch her bed." Tommy was going to be supportive and help Laurel through this time, he lost his best friend, but she lost her sister and boyfriend while also finding out her boyfriend and sister were sleeping together. She had the biggest trump card of all.

"I'm going to go pack up her computer. I'm sure there is a bunch of stuff on that she wouldn't want mom and dad to find out." Laurel went back up there and sat at the desk knowing that her laptop was already packed away in a box in the basement like everything else the university sent down from her dorm. She got curious and booted it up. The regular welcome screen came on, her icon was of her and one of her friends wine coolers in hand. The password text box was blinking waiting for the password. "Kurt Cobain no spaces." Laurel typed in the password Sara used for everything. The screen flashed incorrect password and Laurel was stumped. "What the hell would she change it …she loves Cobain, she cried over him for years after he died." She heard Tommy come back up the stairs. "She changed her password, help me find something that might be her new one. She clearly got over her ten year love of Cobain."

"We're snooping?"

"She's dead Tommy she isn't going to find out and haunt you for it." Laurel went to the bookshelf and started checking them while Tommy checked under the mattress.

"Found something." He pulled out the magazine. "Why does she have a playboy hidden between the mattress and box spring?"

"The bed was Josh's he must've had it there and it just got stuck there during the move, the box spring's spring was poking out and it was stuck in the mattress, they had to carry both in at the same time." Tommy didn't bother stating that it was a recent issue, same month as when the yacht went down. "Do you know who Lucy Lawless is?"

"Xena. Why?"

"She's on the cover of all these magazines. Sara only buys ones with people on the covers she likes. What's Xena famous for?"

"Lesbians."

"I'm serious."

"Me too. They're lesbians. Like married and everything."

"Fine, I'll try her." Laurel typed in the name and was actually surprised when it worked. She started going through the files just looking for a video of Sara, she missed her and wanted to see her. "Tommy, do you have gay porn on your computer?"

"No. Why?"

"Sara does. I mean even Oliver doesn't have this much lesbian porn on his computer. Or didn't I keep forgetting I need to use past tense."

…

When Quentin came home he heard some laughter coming from Sara's room, he thought he was dreaming or something but he couldn't help but think that Sara was back, everything has just been in a terrible nightmare and he finally awoke from it.

Instead he saw the room almost empty minus the bed and some posters on the walls with Laurel sitting on the floor, Tommy next to her watching a video on Sara's laptop.

"Dad come here watch this." Laurel motioned for him to sit next to her and once he did she hit play and the video started it was Sara, no older than four arguing with Dinah over being forced into some pink frilly outfit.

"I remember this, your mom decided to put Sara in dance and I decided to sign her up for T-ball. They were at the same time and your mom was trying to convince Sara she wanted to do dance instead. But no she wanted to play baseball with her daddy."

"She was the son you never had."

"Hey, she just liked spending time with her daddy and I made the sports grow on her." Quentin went to the next video which was Sara leaving for prom.

"I never saw this one." Laurel remembered the phone calls from a frantic Sara because she wasn't allowed to get the perfect dress because it was over a thousand dollars. In the film she wore a dress straight out of a magazine, she looked like the femme fatal from a Noir film which went well with her date who was dressed like the main character from the same film.

"She didn't come home for three days after that dance, we found her and her date, plus some other friends under a bridge still drunk. I swear she was trying to give me a heart attack."

"What do you expect Dad her date looks like he's thirty."

"He was thirty, that's the same scum bag who she dated when she was fourteen." When Quentin found out his fourteen year old was dating a twenty seven year old he did what any father would do. He planted drugs on the fucker and arrested him.

"I'm really surprised you didn't have bars on her window."

"Try and open the window. I nailed it shut years ago." Quentin had to put a stop to the sneaking out somehow and Sara was clearly going to constantly test him.

"You nailed her window shut?" Tommy thought it was a bit extreme.

"It was the only thing I could do to keep her in, especially when she was grounded, which was most of the time."

"That's how she taught herself how to break out of your handcuffs." Laurel explained. "She found your spare pair and would spend all the time she was grounded learning how to get out of them. She use to have to call me to get me to unlock them if she couldn't do it." Laurel opened a drawer of the desk and pulled out the false bottom where the handcuffs and their key was hidden, along with a lighter, a pack of cigarettes and a box of rolling papers. She felt tears start to burn her eyes and got up storming off. She was pissed, she was so angry at Sara, for sleeping with Oliver, she had no idea how long that was going on, but damn it she was still mad, but whenever she felt mad about it she would feel guilty and terrible because her sister was dead and she was angry at her and what if that anger caused her to die, when they found the wreckage of the ship they said that the life raft was gone but that it had been so long that there was no way anyone could have survived. She killed her sister with her anger. "We need to finish cleaning her room out."

"You don't think you should have talked to us before you started this?" Quentin asked.

"No, I talked to Dr. Stevens and he said that we needed to stop using her room as a tomb. We need to move on Dad. It's been a year. They found the boat, they said no one survived. She went from just missing to dead. She's not coming back! Her body is gone, probably sunk to the bottom of the ocean or eaten by some animals." She was crying now and she didn't care. "This is healthy! Look at what it's doing to you and mom! All you do is fight and cry! Sara's dead! Nothing is going to bring her back! We already buried her!" Laurel remembered the actual funeral. Her dad was drunk and her mom was just a mess. Everyone understood since they were burying an empty box that was suppose to have Sara in.

"This wasn't up to you Laurel. You're the child, I'm the parent. Sara's room was fine the way it was before. Where's her dresser and her clothes?"

"They're in the Uhal, they're going to a storage unit until we can all agree to sell or donate them."

"Bring them back in here." Quentin ordered before leaving going straight to the kitchen where he left his case of beer.

…

That night Laurel was lying in bed awake hearing her mom sobbing in Sara's room and she could tell from the yelling downstairs her dad was drunk again yelling at the tv for who knows what.

All this pain because Sara was a bitch and went with Oliver.

"If you weren't already dead, I swear to God Sara I'd kill you for what you did to Mom and Dad." She knew in the morning she would need to call Dr. Stevens again and try and get him to talk to her parents about healthy ways to grieve.


End file.
